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Lillian Hellman is considered as an ideal woman for many feminists and many liberalists. Her courage against McCarthyism makes her famous, but her works are underrated for their melodramatic elements. According to the traditional view, melodrama is considered inferior as compared with tragedy and realistic drama. Melodrama exaggerates the characters and the events in the play, so people think it does not reflect reality correctly. But this traditional opinion is blind to melodramatic imagination through which the fears and the desires of people are revealed without any coverage.
In the melodramatic narrative structure, menace is indispensible. Unlike many traditional melodramas, Hellman's works connect menace with political and social situations. Menace in Hellman's plays is not a dramatic technique without any connection to politics. Hellman thinks there is a struggle between good and evil in our real life. Fascists, McCarthists and many conservative capitalists are the menace to the harmonious community. Hellman's representation of villains provoked conservative critics and aroused much reaction among the audience.
The Great Depression is the most influential element in her works, and it has the deep influence upon Hellman. This event is a true threat to the happy lives of the common people, so it awakens her social and political responsibility. In her work, she directly deals with the Great Depression and investigates it's origins and effects. According to Hellman, the Great Depression is the beginning point of the breakdown of the harmonious world, which villains destroys for their own greed. She tries to rewrite American history from the view point of a progressive liberal. In her liberal perspective, many rich men's greed and their will to power are the true menace to American democracy.